The director of the foundation, Professor Stuart Rees, said: “By challenging centuries old practices of government secrecy and by championing people’s right to know, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have created the potential for a new order in journalism and in the free flow of information.”

Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks mirrored England‘s historic “free speech traditions, these go back in the UK to the time of the English Civil War of the 1640……the real value of this award, and the Sydney Peace Foundation is that it makes explicit the link between peace and justice”.